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Greetings from Santa Fe

11-11-2009, 09:39 PM

Hi, this is Ed. I am taking a deep breath after looking at all the great ovens on the FB site, and the complexity that goes into them. I have just finished pouring an L shaped footer for an outdoor kitchen with a WF oven in the corner of the L. My hope is to get the stand and hearth done in the next week or so, then take my time over the winter building the dome. Some questions I have at this point include:

1) do you really need to insulate the firebrick dome? my local firebrick dealer tells me the outside of his kiln which is at 2000 F can be touched by the hand. I understand about heat retention for hours on end, however, I do not expect to be cooking all day long -- maybe that will change.

2) I have a pretty nice tile saw, radial arm type, that I use for doing rock cutting, however, when I see all the compound mitre cuts in the pictures I am wondering if this MK 10" saw is up the job -- stupid question, but can I just use a diamond blade on a compound mitre saw normally meant for wood, of course it would not be a wet saw.

3) I am assuming it is easy to find vermiculite and perlite, although I have never seen them before in the garden stores. Another option for me might be actual pumice rock? The mountains around my home are loaded with pumice. Anyone ever use pumice for the loose fill?

4) The craftmanship and artwork of the brick domes is beautiful. It is too bad it gets all covered up with the insulation and outer shelter. That is one of my reasons for question 1 above. I may try to build a secondary dome out of pieces of sandstone (flagstone) around the inner firebrick dome. Any suggestions on this?

Thanks, it will be a fun project and I look forward to learning lots more.